You don’t have the right to interrupt someone else’s event. That infringes on their own right of assembly and speech.
So, Mr Shaw, do you think all Disturbing the Peace and noise ordinances should be ruled unconstitutional?
These people show up for the expressed purpose of inflicting mental anguish on grieving relatives. If you can’t outlaw that, then they need to remove the laws that let citizens take care of people like and have no legal repercussions.
This could affect my plans for HRC’s service.
Good call. While broadly libertarian in my approach to civil liberties, there is no such thing as a right w/o some qualifications or exceptions.
Didn’t the person in the photo expire a few years ago?
I wish we knew why Fred Phelps was excommunicated by his own family run church. He died almost immediately afterward.
There is no right to free speech at those funerals.
Stand up and shout in the peanut gallery in Congress and you’ll be dragged away and arrested. Fighting words have always been illegal in most states, Pass out handbills against the draft, and according to Schenck vs the US you have shouted “fire” in a crowded theater and thereby created a clear and present danger.
But somehow, the black robed jackasses cannot see that insulting the dead kid in earshot, as the parents are burying them, is an immediate danger.
I’m amazed nobody has killed them yet. Id laugh to see a Dodge ram go through them at full speed. Any decent human being on a jury would acquit.
“To be true to our dedication to the actual meaning of the First Amendment (and not the “new” version preached on campuses these days), we have to remember that unpopular speech is the most critical speech to protect. “
Bullcrap. Pure sophistry. The first amendment was never crafted to be able to stand close and celebrate, mocking parents as they bury a loved one. A parent deserves AT LEAST as much protection at that moment as a politician does from a heckler while giving a speech.
A funeral is a private event. You have no right to disrupt or cause trouble at it
Oh those Burros.
Among other things suggesting that God is mad at a people group that has about as little to do with the problem being protested as anything.
So, perhaps maybe a hundred or so protestors continually outside Westboro ‘s maven like “occupy whatever” would be okay too. Free speech and assembly and all.... Maybe throw in a dozen Harley’s and a bunch of rock music and perhaps a handful of port-a-potties.....
Only problem would be finding folks who could take lots of time off from work etc- yeah, the rest of us actually produce value, rather than simply consuming others’ labor.
Why don’t lefties sue the hell out of them for saying God hates homos?